The game of golf is an increasingly popular sport at both the amateur and professional levels. To account for the wide variety of play styles and abilities, it is desirable to produce golf balls having different play characteristics.
Attempts have been made to balance a soft feel with good resilience in a multi-layer golf ball by giving the ball a hardness distribution across its respective layers (core, intermediate layer and cover) in such a way as to retain both properties. A harder golf ball will generally achieve greater distances, but a poor feel when hit. On the other hand, a softer ball will generally give a good feel, but will lack distance. Additionally, certain design characteristics may affect the “feel” of the ball when hit, as well as the durability of the ball.